Digital financial service posts growth
Written by Millennium on August 12, 2019
BUUMBA CHIMBULU writes
THE digital financial service (DFS) industry in Zambia has experienced significant growth with the sector currently boasting of 18 providers.
This is according to the Zambia’s 2018 State of the DFS Market Report released by the United Nations Capital Development Fund in collaboration with the Bank of Zambia (BoZ).
The report indicates that in 2018, the total number of registered and active DFS accounts grew by 22 percent and 89 percent, respectively
The industry went from only two percent active DFS accounts from four providers in 2014 to 44 from 18 providers in 2018.
Responding to the rise in active customers, the report says, the number of active agents grew to 46,747 from 22,965 in 2018.
According to the report, the growth in number of agents is critical to increasing access to DFS.
“Between December 2017 and December 2018, active DFS accounts grew by 89 percent. In 2018, the total number of registered and active DFS accounts grew by 22 percent and 89 percent, respectively.
“As a result, there were 16.5 million registered DFS accounts and 4.3 million active DFS accounts,” says the report.
This year, the report says, 85 percent of providers continuously increased investment in their technical and organisational capacity.
Providers dedicated more than 72 percent of their DFS staff to agent network management, further illustrating how meaningful these services are to providers.
“However, the challenges within the 11 agent networks exhibited in 2018 may inhibit that access and further industry growth. The major challenges identified were agent activity level, agent transaction volumes and agent commissions,” says the report.
